From Here to Eternity_ The Restored Edit - Jones, James [141]
Maggio and Sandra were shaking hands with the sailors in great friendship, like the host and hostess regretfully speeding the departing guests. As soon as the sailors had gone through the connecting doors into the second waiting room Maggio sat down with a great sigh and pulled Sandra down on his lap, whereupon Maggio completely disappeared from view.
“Hey,” Maggio said muffledly. “I dont think this is going to work out so good. How about me sitting on your lap? For a change?”
“Well,” Sandra said. “It would be an experience.”
She got up, laughing and wrinkling her pert nose and shaking her black cascade of gleaming hair, and they changed places, Maggio looking like a mahout perched on his favorite she elephant, or a circus monkey riding high up in the air on a big breasted Shetland pony.
“Hey,” he said, “hey, look at me. Do You Want One—Of Them Big Fat Mamas—Too,” he sang. It was a perfect mime of Wingy Manone’s chortling, whiskey-rusty vocal.
“What do you mean, fat?” Sandra, who except for her breasts was very slender, said indignantly. “I’m not fat, sonny.”
“I know it, baby,” Maggio said. “Dont call me sonny. I was ony speaking figurtively. Theres no call to get mad on me and insulting.
“Hey, Prew,” he said, changing the subject. “Them sailors remind me of what I forgot to tell you. I see our chum Bloom down to the Tavern tonight.”
“Yeah?” Prew said listlessly. “Who with?”
“With a great big bastard of a queen he’s got on the string named Tommy who’s even bigger than Bloom is, if you can picture that.”
“Oh,” Prew said. “Well, well.”
“I cant picture it neither,” Maggio said. “Except he’s got a lot of shoulder for our boy to cry on. When Bloom seen me and I seen how he looked at me I begun to lookin around for a good big heavy chair.”
“You meant he wasnt glad to see you?” Prew said.
Maggio laughed. “He got a patch of tape as big as my mouth on that flat head. My boy Hal knows this Tommy well,” he said. “Thats what he said, first time he seen him with Bloom, he said: ‘Alas, poor Tommy, I knew him well.’”
“Thats from Shakespeare,” Sandra said. “A corruption. From Shakespeare’s Hamlet: ‘Alas, poor Yorick, I knew him well.’”
“Yeah?” Angelo said. “Well what do you know. My boy Hal is plenty educated, baby. Very poetic, Hal is.”
“I bet he is,” Sandra grinned. “I bet he’s very poetic. They’re all poetic. I got a couple odd ones that come up to see me every now and then.”
“Well,” Maggio mimed. “Whatever for?”
“You guess,” Sandra grinned.
“I dont have to guess,” Maggio said. “Old Hal,” he said to Prew, “says this Tommy borrows his car to take Bloom out with, ever time old Hal will let him have it. He says Tommy hardly makes enough to live on, says he works someplace downtown and writes stories for magazines on the side. Old Hal says he dont make near enough to spend money on our chum Bloom, says he cant hardly buy our chum Bloom drinks even. Frankly, I am getting so I am wondering who is laying whom.”
“Sure,” Prew said, trying to think of something to say. “I wouldnt doubt it,” he added, finally.
“I had dinner down at Lau Yee Chai’s tonight,” Maggio bragged to Sandra. “Feature that.”
“Lau Yee Chai’s?” Sandra said indifferently. “Thats my favorite hangout. Its a highclass place. I eat there all the time.”
“Will they let you in?”
“Sure,” Sandra said. “Why not?”
“I thought The Law said you gals had to live out of town.”
“It does,” Sandra said. “But at Lau Yee Chai’s they think I’m a rich tourist lady.”
“You ever eat any of this pa-pa-ya?” Maggio asked her.
“Papaya,” Sandra said. “Eat it all the time. I love it.”
“Tonight was a first time I ever had some,” Angelo said. “Looks like mushmelon, kind of, but it tastes like nothin. They got to put lemon juice on it to make it taste at all.”
“Its like olives,” Sandra said. “You have to acquire a taste for it.”
“Same thing as avocado,” Stark said, with authority, “or snails. You got to learn to like it.”
“To me,” Angelo said, “with lemon on it, it smells just like vomit. I am not acquiring any tastes for vomit.” He laughed uproariously half-drunkenly, so hard